Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of transferring an ink image to a print medium.
Description of the Related Art
There is provided an inkjet printing apparatus that executes printing by drawing an image on a drum-like intermediate transfer member by a line head and transferring the image from the intermediate transfer member to a cut sheet print medium. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2014-205336 describes a method of allowing such printing apparatus to print an image on a plurality of sheets in one rotation of an intermediate transfer member by using a four-fold intermediate transfer member having a diameter four times the diameter of a reference drum defined based on the length of the sheet to be printed.
For various reasons, it may be impossible to execute printing on a desired number of sheets in one rotation of the intermediate transfer member. For example, when drawing an image on the intermediate transfer member, various processes for forming the image to be transferred are performed. These processes increase the processing time in proportion to the size of the image to be processed. Therefore, as for an image of a large size, the time taken to process one image can be longer than that taken for rotation of the intermediate transfer member for one image. It may be desirable to provide a predetermined interval as a conveyance interval from the viewpoint of the sheet conveyance property. In these cases, the number of images printed in one rotation of the intermediate transfer member is decreased, thereby reducing the paper feeding count. At this time, a portion where printing is executed and a portion where no printing is executed may occur regularly on the intermediate transfer member, and thus physical degradation of the portions of the intermediate transfer member where printing is executed and components related to the portions may progress more than the remaining portions.